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Defy the credit crunch

Posted on 3 Sep 2008 at 10:14

Keep your computing costs under control with our 41 cash-saving secrets.

With inflation at an 11-year-high, petrol prices inching up on an almost daily basis, and energy bills predicted to rise by as much as 40% this autumn, our pockets are being hit harder than at any time since PC Pro first graced the newsagents' shelves in 1994.

Yet, for us computing enthusiasts, we've never had it so good. The average price of a PC continues to tumble, according to a recent report by Gartner. And now we've found 41 ways to make thousands of pounds' worth of savings on all aspects of your computing, from hardware and software to services and energy bills.

Over the following pages, we've detailed dozens of ways to save, from scraping a few pounds off your electricity bill by running backups at night, to wiping hundreds of pounds off your software spend by buying the most advantageous licences.

We won't waste your time with the blindingly obvious money savers, such as running open-source software instead of commercial packages (although if you want to read our guide to the 50 best free downloads. Instead, we've used our years of real-world experience to offer practical money-saving hints that you might not have considered before.

On the flip side, some wheezes that look like obvious money savers can actually cost more in the long-run. We've listed the ten things you should never do to save a few pennies.

If you've got any brilliant cash-saving tips of your own, drop us a line at letters@pcpro.co.uk and we'll publish the best of your suggestions in a future issue.

Hardware
Software
Subscriptions & services
Energy & consumables
10 things you definitely shouldn't do to save money